SACRAMENTO – A pair of high-profile gambling measures that sought to expand Indian casinos while outlawing electronic bingo machines for charities were blocked by an Assembly committee yesterday.

One of the bills, SB 1201, would authorize more than 60 tribes that signed gambling agreements, or compacts, in 1999 to operate up to 2,000 slot machines each. Those deals included a statewide cap that left many tribes, including Rincon and San Pasqual of San Diego County, with fewer than 2,000 slots.

The other measure, SB 864, would impose fines of $10,000 for each bingo machine operated off Indian reservations.

Both bills were defeated, but could be reconsidered this year.

Sen. Jim Battin, a Palm Desert Republican who carried both measures, told the Governmental Organization Committee that it would rue the rejection of the bingo bill.

“You are creating an industry that is going to flame across California like you can't believe,” Battin warned.

A few blocks away, U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez was delivering a second big victory to charities and the bingo-machine manufacturers when he issued a preliminary injunction barring the state from seizing hundreds of bingo machines around California.

Mendez's decision will allow charities and nonprofit groups to continue operating the machines while their legality outside Indian casinos is litigated. That could take months, if not years.

At least four California attorneys general have warned that bingo machines are illegal. But the federal judge said that is not certain.

“There is nothing explicit that outlaws these machines,” Mendez said.

Tribes have warned the state that they believe bingo machines violate a guaranteed monopoly on slots for which they agreed to pay the state a larger share of gaming revenue. If that exclusivity is lost, tribes could suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in annual payments to the state.

On the slots measure, Battin argued that compacts negotiated after 1999 authorized unlimited machines and rendered the statewide cap in the '99 deals meaningless.

But Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, said there was “always an understanding that there would be a cap on the number of machines” under the 1999 compacts, and that some tribes had renegotiated those deals as a result. To alter the terms now would be unfair to those tribes that have agreed to other concessions to get more slots, Torrico said.

Cathy Christian, a lobbyist for San Diego County, also noted that the 1999 compacts gave local governments little power to force tribes to address the off-reservation effects of their casinos. Newer compacts strengthened local governments' position in those negotiations.